Khayenne's new play -- and barn plans . . .

Just got an e-mail from John - his Golden Retriever, Khayenne, has been in plays at the Runnels School a number of times, but next month she is going to be in "Annie" at Theatre Baton Rouge downtown!  (And so are John and Steve, for that matter, but hey -- I'm way more impressed with Khay!)

 

Here's his note about it:

 

Theatre Baton Rouge (formerly Baton Rouge Little Theater) is presenting the classic musical Annie June 6-22.   

Taylor Porter’s own Steve Lalande will be featured as Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

My ten-year-old Golden Retriever Khayenne is Annie’s dog “Sandy.” 

Yours truly has a small part as a New York City police officer.

 

Performance dates and tickets are available at theatrebr.org

 

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Well, it's been QUITE a weekend at our place.  That electric fence in front is done!  And we've added a couple of weeping willow trees inside the yard by the house and put some more of those knock out roses in the raised beds as well.  I planted three of those in there last year and unlike a lot of the other plants, they held on just fine through all the rain and freezing temperatures etc. last winter and kept right on blooming.  LOVE those things! 

And the chain link fence around the dog yard has been repaired. (Duke and Arthur had been leaning on it and even backing into it to scratch their butts and it had been anything but straight!) 

After Duke and Arthur got this gate opened and went after the dogs, we put all KIND of things on there to keep them out and the dogs in.  Pretty "yukky," huh??



It was quite an effort to get all that stuff off of there so they could replace that post!
(Mark is unlocking things.)

Here's a partial view of the mess Duke and Arthur made with this fence!

 

And here's some more of the fence that needed repaired on the other end near that gate.
(Check out Duke and Shadow and Arthur hanging out together back there.) 

Here they all are hanging out at the fence BEFORE we got the electrical wire on there.
(And I see Arthur checking to see if he can get back in that gate! . . .
they LOVE the dog yard!)

 

Mark also went down to Tractor Supply and picked up all the panels and a gate for our new round pen yesterday, too.  When he comes back onshore next time, he and Jerry are going to replace the fences on the back of the paddocks with those heavy duty iron fence panels instead of NON-electric wire fencing that Arthur simply climbs through when he wants out!  Then the round pen panels will be added to those iron panels along with a couple of gates so that the round pen will end up being about 55 or 60 feet in diameter.  I am really looking forward to having that thing out there because Shadow is as bad as Duke about trying to run into her stall anytime she gets near the barn, so she will be able to be handled IN the round pen initially, and then we can go out the back gate to the back pasture or even out the front gate to the front yard without her trying to go into her stall.

 

Then today the concrete guys will be coming over to begin pouring concrete 6 1/2 feet wide around the barn.  Once it's dry we plan to put all those mats on there that we had directly on the ground before.  But when they were on the ground and we got major rain, they would push down into the mud and water and mud would run over them and make them super slippery.  NOT good.  When they pour the concrete, they're going to make it super-rough so that -- hopefully -- those mats will not be able to slide off the concrete.  If that works out, the horses won't have to move around directly on the concrete but there WON'T be mud out there either.     Then we're going to add lots of sand on the rest of the ground in their paddocks.  (Arthur is going to LOVE that! . . . when he was being trained up at Zoilo's place, after he was bathed he would race straight out to the sand in Zoilo's paddock and roll around like crazy!  He loves that stuff!)

There is a sufficient roof overhang on the back of the barn, but that side on the left definitely needs an additional roof.  We're also going to move that fence there on the left up to the back  corner of the barn so that as we open one or the other of the two doors into Arthur's stall he can be going out into either of the TWO paddocks instead of having both doors opening into the same one.

(Hmmm.  We have obviously forgotten to finish painting that cement board above
the doors on that side there away from the house.  Guess we better put THAT on
the list as well. Well, it should be a lot easier to get to once there's concrete there
 on the ground anyway.  Sigh.  Always something.)

Then that cement runs all the way around the barn except under Duke's porch roof.  There will be a gutter along the edge of that porch so that it won't get so muddy on that side, but underneath it never actually does. 

 

 Those concrete guys are also going to pour a 4-foot wide walk from the house to the barn, as well.  Nice.  We have been using a few of those 18" square concrete pads, but when I try to go out there at night or in heavy rain I tend to trip over them since I can't really see them all that well.  I nice solid walk is going to be GREAT!

This is SURE going to beat trying to walk on those little stone squares -
impossible to do in the dark!

 

 As I mentioned earlier, we're also planning to have someone build a roof over the far side of the barn away from the house so that Shadow's and Arthur's stalls will be nice and dry even in a storm WITHOUT closing their doors.  We don't want to have to lock them in just to make it possible for them to stay out of a storm.  And once we have that roof over the concrete, we will be able to set their stall cleaning wagons outside their stalls.  That will allow them even more  room.  (And the doors will also stay in good shape once they're not continually rained on, too.)  I haven't chosen who is going to build that roof yet, and who is going to install the gutters.  But that's about all we have left that we want to get done right away.

This is the side where we're planning to add a roof over the concrete "porch."
(I sure hope that cement layout is straighter than it appears in this picture!)

 

Well, maybe not everything is being done yet . . . Mark is going to put in a drain pipe so he can (finally) install the sink inside the barn.  That drain will be connected to the drain line across the front of the property, but it can run out through a ditch where we can surround it with gravel so that the rain can drain out of their paddocks as well.  I'll tell you what - by the end of this summer those things are going to be absolutely great!  In fact, they're pretty darned good already!!